Jailbird Shkreli beats ouster bid

He’s still shamelessly running the company from prison.

Longtime activist investor Jason Aryeh speaking of Martin Shkreli (left), the infamous “Pharma Bro” who’’s serving time for fraud

A group of activist investors seeking to wrest control of Martin Shkreli’s pharmaceutical company failed miserably this week — with the “Pharma Bro” voting his shares from prison.

But the battle is not over, and the investors now plan to seize Shkreli’s 44 percent stake in Phoenixus — the parent of Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals, now renamed Vyera, The Post has learned.

On Monday, former Shkreli confidante and Vyera executive Kevin Mulleady, together with Jason Aryeh, a longtime activist investor in the pharmaceutical industry, held a special meeting asking Phoenixus shareholders to replace the current board of directors, who they say are Shkreli cronies.

But Mulleady and Aryeh’s proposed slate of six new directors each lost by more than 70 percent.

Shkreli, 38, is serving a seven-year sentence through 2023 for securities fraud.

He rose to notoriety in 2015 as CEO of Turing when he hiked the price of life-saving AIDS treatment Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 — a 5,000 percent increase.

Mulleady and Aryeh began working together last summer when Mulleady was chairman of Phoenixus, Aryeh said in an interview. When Shkreli caught wind of the partnership, he called a meeting to vote Mulleady off the board, Aryeh said.

“He’s still shamelessly running the company from prison,” Aryeh said.

Despite the crushing loss, the activists say they are plotting a comeback to throw out the Shkreli board and return the price of Daraprim to pre-Shkreli levels.

Although Shkreli technically forfeited his stock after his conviction, the shares haven’t officially been reassigned, so he can still vote on company matters.

The activists are trying to get a Brooklyn federal judge to reassign the shares to a Dr. Thomas Koestler, who they say has not been paid by Shkreli for consulting services. Koestler has committed to selling the shares to Mulleady once he secures them.

The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction over forfeited shares and also can reassign them, Aryeh said.